“There is no doubt that the internet has certain advantages. However, when it begins to affect our day-to-day lives, it is a problem.”
-Irene Lee, Senior Author of the Study
New study conducted by UCL researchers suggests that adolescents who have an internet addiction have changes in the brain that lead to changes that cause addictive behaviour and tendencies. These findings have been published in PLOS Mental Health where they have reviewed 12 articles entailing 237 young people from ages 10 to 19 diagnosed with internet addiction from 2013 to 2023. Internet addiction is defined as the inability to resist the urge of internet use that is disrupting psychological, social, academic, and professional well-being. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) the team inspected the functional connectivity of the participants’ brains that were hooked on to the internet, while they were either resting or completing a task. The effects were observed on adolescent brains, throughout multiple networks. There was a mixture of increased and decreased activity in the brain parts that were activated when resting.
They found that there was an overall reduction in the functional connectivity of the brain parts that were involved in the active thinking processes. These changes were linked to the addictive behaviours and tendencies found in adolescents, that includes the behaviour changes associated with the intellectual ability, the physical coordination, the mental health and the development. The lead author of the study, Max Chang says, “Adolescence is a crucial developmental stage during which people go through significant changes in their biology, cognition and personalities. As a result, the brain is particularly vulnerable to internet addiction-related urges during this time, such as compulsive internet usage, cravings towards usage of the mouse or keyboard consuming media. The findings from our study show that this can lead to potentially negative behavioral and developmental changes that could impact the lives of adolescents. For example, they may struggle to maintain relationships and social activities, lie about online activity and experience irregular eating and disrupted sleep.” With smartphones and laptops being widely available, internet addiction is a growing epidemic across the world.
Previous research has demonstrated that most people in the UK spend over 24 hours every week online and among those surveyed, more than half were reported as being internet addicts. Ofcom has discovered that over 60% out of the 50 million users in the UK have acknowledged that the internet use had a negative effect in their lives. The study had a few shortcomings which were as follows: there was a limited use of MRI scans for investigation into the internet addiction, the adolescent samples that were taken in consideration were small, the samples were sourced from Asian countries as opposed to Western countries.
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